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International Conference
as part of the European Museums in an Age of Migrations (MeLA)
European Commission FP7-funded project

Organised by the
International Centre for Cultural & Heritage Studies,
Newcastle University
3-4 September 2012

Call for Papers

The imperatives surrounding the museum representation of place have shifted from the late eighteenth century to today. This is in part because the political significance of place itself has changed and continues to change at all scales, from local, civic, regional to national and supranational. At the same time, recognition of changes in population flows, migration patterns and demographic movement now underscore both cultural and political practice, be it in the accommodation of ‘diversity’ in cultural and social policy, scholarly explorations of hybridity or in state immigration controls. These issues, taken historically, have particular significance for contemporary understandings of the role of place in individual, collective and state notions of society in the EU, in member states and in other European countries. How do European museums present societies as bound to, or enabled by, place and places? Or as having roots in places and/or taking routes from, to and through places? What cartographical groupings, borders, knowledges (e.g. archaeological, ethnographic etc.) and traversals order and organise populations into societies in the museum? What is the metaphorical ‘place’ of place in European museums now, what does this say about identities?

To invert these questions, we might ask what happens or what can happen, when the ‘peoples’ and ‘places’ implicated in, and at least to some extent constructed in, museum representation shift, change, multiply, fragment and/or move? What happens when the museum desire for fixity is disrupted by new sensibilities towards population flows, multiple heritages and the shiftingterritories of geopolitical places? Should museums’ representational practices change? If so how? What are the new dimensions of identity construction andproduction in museums whose physical place is fixed, but whose audiences, with their changing heritages and cultures, are not?
Confirmed keynote speakers include:
Peter Aronsson, Professor, Uses of the Past and Cultural Heritage, Tema Q, Culture Studies, Linköpings University, Sweden; Ullrich Kockel, Professor of Ethnology and Folk Life, University of Ulster; Annemarie de Wildt, Curator, Amsterdam Museum.

Submissions are invited in the following areas:

* Theoretical approaches to the study of museums and place
* Representation of migration and mobility in European Museums
* European and EU political contexts for place-people-culture relations
* Place identities in museums: European, national, local and hybridised
* Relationships between place and ethnicity in European museum representations
* Visitor experiences of place representations in European museums

· Belonging and alienation in European museums

Submissions are invited for individual papers and for thematic sessions comprising 3-4 papers.
Instructions for submission
Abstracts of maximum 300 words for individual papers should be submitted to Victoria Patton (victoria.patton@ncl.ac.uk<

· Keywords (maximum 5)
Authors will be notified of the acceptance of their proposals in early May. Accepted speakers will be required to submit a 2000-5000-word full paper in advance of the conference (to Victoria Patton by 2nd July 2012). Thesefull papers will be included on a CD in the delegate packs provided during the conference. Paper presentations at the conference will be limited to 20 minutes in duration and should therefore summarise the key arguments and findings of the full paper.
There is no registration fee for the conference and lunch is included on both days.

The purpose of this multidisciplinary and international
symposium is to give scholars from various backgrounds and
geographical areas working on the topic of heritage and
museums an opportunity to meet.

Processes of patrimonialization are primarily a matter of
cultural production and preservation. However, to the extent
that they entail a selection of objects, persons and
‘traditions’ to be preserved and/or displayed, and a
choice of the places and forms of the exhibits, they
unavoidably involve economic, political and social stakes.
The heritage and museum boom occurring in many countries may
be linked to an increased economic and political competition
between localities, the enactment of multicultural policies,
as well as the growing involvement of local actors – private
citizens, families, foundations, NGOs, etc. Therefore,
heritage and museum projects may be considered as situated
at the intersection of a variety of arenas at the local,
national, regional and global levels. At the heart of
patrimonialization lies a scalar dynamic that raises the
question of whether we may talk of « heritage-scapes ».
These scapes would result from the encounter between Western
paradigms and alternative models of relating to the past,
and of producing and promoting culture.

We welcome contributions that address one of the following
sub-themes (cf. attached document):

– OBJECTS : The social life of objects in museums and
heritage.
– ARENAS : Intersections between scales
– SITES: The social production of places
– PARADIGMS: encounters between Western and other
models

Proposals for papers, with title, a 3,000 sign abstract
(including spaces), author’s name, affiliation and email
address are to be sent in word or rtf format. Please mention
the selected sub-theme. Proposals are to be sent to Laurence
Gillot (lgillot@ulb.ac.be); Irène Maffi
(irene.maffi@unil.ch) and/or Anne-Christine Trémon
(anne-christine.tremon@unil.ch

First congress of the
Network of the Researchers on Heritagisations
and the
Centro Interdisciplinar de História, Culturas e Sociedades da Universidade de Évora.

The central idea of this symposium is to carry out an international comparison of vocabulary variants and local linguistic uses of “heritage”, both in the context of contact with international institutions and in the limited one of indigenous and customary uses. The symposium therefore proposes to take seriously the emic definitions and redefinitions of “indigenous terms” and to draw up a critical inventory of them, by going beyond the fiction of a continuous and globalized homogeneous “heritage” field. A comparative analysis and the confrontation of related concepts in the different local vocabularies would also make it possible to get the measure of the transactions, mutations, misunderstandings and transfers that may arise from the global contact initiated in cultural exchanges over the last two centuries.

The Indeterminacy of Cultural Heritage and Cultural Property in International Negotiations and Local Configurations
Stefan Groth, DFG-Research Group on Cultural Property, Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology, Göttingen University

Patrimoni, Cerrado and Heritage: the Socio-Cultural Reproduction of Rural Areas in the Global Context
Meritxell Sucarrat Viola, University of Barcelona, Spain and Luís Silva, Centre for Research in Anthropology, Portugal

Negotiating (performance) space and (heritage) status: mascarados and foliões in the Festa do Divino (Brazil) (working title)
Maria J.C. Krom, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences / CRIA – Center for Research in Anthropology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

“We are Indigenous. That’s why we have to barter”. Economic exchange as intangible heritage in the Argentinean Andes
Olivia Angé, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA), University of Oxford

17:30 – 17:45 Coffee Break

17:45 – 18:15 Final debate

20:30– 23.00 Closing Dinner

Registration Information
The price of 50 € includes 6 coffee breaks, the guided tour of the historical center of Evora (Unesco World Heritage) and documentation.
You can participate in the final dinner for 50 €.
To obtain a receipt, you must file the tax number lines.
The registration will only be complete once we have received the full registration fee. Cancellation and reimbursement will be possible till 2 months before the congress.
The best way to pay is the bank transfer.
From a Portuguese bank
Universidade de Évora
NIB: 0035 0297 0006 7961 1307 3
From abord, please send the money to
Universidade de Évora
Colegio do Espirito Santo
7002-554 Évora
Portugal
Caixa Geral dos Depositos
IBAN: PT50 0035 0297 0006 7961 1307 3
SWIFT: CGDIPTPL
Please, send the application form (in .pdf) and a screen-copy of your transfer (in a PDF file) to lvh2012@uevora.pt before December, 15th.

SHAPING HERITAGE‐SCAPES: PROCESSES OF PATRIMONIALIZATION IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD

International symposium, University of Lausanne, 6-7 September 2012

The purpose of this multidisciplinary and international symposium is to give scholars from various backgrounds and geographical areas working on the topic of heritage and museums an opportunity to meet. While aware of their differences of views, we wish to raise questions that are common to heritage and museums.

We propose to regard them both as part of one and the same process referred to as patrimonialization. We thus extend the meaning of this expression, primarily used in francophone studies, to refer to the historically situated projects and procedures that transform places, people, ‘traditions’, and artefacts into heritage to be protected, exhibited, and highlighted. Processes of patrimonialization are primarily a matter of cultural production and preservation. However, to the extent that they entail a selection of objects, persons and ‘traditions’ to be preserved and/or displayed, and a choice of the places and forms of the exhibits, they unavoidably involve economic, political and social stakes.

The heritage and museum boom occurring in many countries may be linked to an increased economic and political competition between localities, the enactment of multicultural policies, as well as the growing involvement of local actors – private citizens, families, foundations, NGOs, etc. Therefore, heritage and museum projects may be considered as situated at the intersection of a variety of arenas at the local, national, regional and global levels. At the heart of patrimonialization lies a scalar dynamic that raises the question of whether we may talk of « heritage-scapes ». These scapes would result from the encounter between Western paradigms and alternative models of relating to the past, and of producing and promoting culture.

We welcome contributions that address this multifaceted process and focus on one of its aspects: objects, arenas, sites and paradigms.

OBJECTS : The social life of objects in museums and heritage.

Objects have a social life and their status change in time and space according to the contexts of meaning and of use of which they are part. A material object may begin its career as a trivial one made for daily use and end up in the showcase of a museum as the unique witness of a past civilisation. Heritage objects are a relatively new category of human artefacts or natural elements that have reached the status of valuables because they are the symbol of an invisible and imagined universe rather than for their intrinsic characteristics such as artefacts made out of precious materials. While they do not represent primarily a divine or magic dimension, even though they sometimes do, they nonetheless are symbols of an immaterial universe whose main components are historical and aesthetic. Heritage objects represent the history, the identity, the richness of the social world that human societies have inherited and ought to preserve in order to shape the present and the future. The basic question we would

like to address is : how are things turned into heritage and how are the cultural processes of collecting, selecting, exhibiting, serializing and materializing the past orchestrated in the myriads of existing localities, as well as how do things turned into heritage acquire new statuses and meanings in the process. Another aspect we would like to consider is the impact on people lives of the fact that things turn into heritage. How do they transform symbolic configurations, aesthetic sensibilities and pragmatic behaviours? Finally, we wish to analyse the contours of heritage-scapes: what happens once heritage has ‘gone global’, when it becomes a cosmopolitan/cosmo-political heritage?

ARENAS : Intersections between scales

The patrimonialization process makes objects, sites and social actors interact in various arenas, producing a complex world where local and global forces intertwine. The various stakeholders of heritage production and consumption have their own cultural, social, economic and ideological background and the interactions between these actors take various forms that are related to specific historical and cultural circumstances. Colonial and postcolonial contexts constitute stimulating areas of investigation, insofar as we can compare the processes of patrimonialization taking place before, during and after colonization, considering a variety of geographical, cultural, sociopolitical and economic localities that have been under the rule of European states. Detailed case studies will highlight stakeholders’ strategies for choosing, protecting and emphasizing the value of objects or sites that became heritage through theses processes. Since heritage is continuously moving, we shall consider phenomena of globalisation and/or re-configuration or ‘glocalisation’ that bring about the emergence of original forms of heritage. In this context, our approach is twofold. On the one hand, we shall consider how local objects, sites, and customs become inscribed in larger networks, national, regional or global. On the other hand, how do local populations re- appropriate and reinterpret heritage which has been defined on a larger scale? Papers may also highlight the role of heritage as a tool allowing institutions, scholars and heritage promoters to trigger an active participation by local actors, especially the civil society, a fact which is regarded as a condition for a popular and democratic definition of heritage instead of an official and elitist one. On the contrary, papers could consider heritage as a tool of power that could be used to reinforce social and economic disparities and inequalities. Finally, we would like to address the issue of ‘cultural citizenship’ in order to explore to what extent the participation of all stakeholders in the patrimonialization process may lead to modernity, e.g. the emergence of modern citizens and modern nations.

SITES: The social production of places

In the process of patrimonialization, locality is generally a crucial criterion for evaluating and selecting artefacts, people, arts and traditions. The latter draw their “heritage-value” from their close association with specific places. If patrimonialization plays a part in the globalization of culture, it contributes also to the localization of culture. Processes of making heritage or museums result, in turn, in highlighting the particularity of a place and aim at increasing its attractiveness. Places are therefore socially produced in the course of a patrimonialization processes; from localities, they are turned into “sites”. We welcome papers that document and reflect upon the mechanisms underlying this social production of place. How are specific places chosen and circumscribed, and what are the stakes involved in this

selection? What are the links between processes of materialization (the creation of tangible elements of heritage, or visible museum objects) and the localization of culture within the space of the museum/the heritage site? How do objects/persons/‘traditions’ become « markers » of locality: trade marks, brands, symbols? To what extent do the architecture and designs of these sites contribute to the “branding”, the marketing of a place, and to the sites’ local or global reach? Are public spaces transformed into private places (or the opposite) and what are the consequences of such a change of status? How are these sites perceived by the local residents and are they used in ways that are not in line with their new status? We also welcome reflections on the methods used by the contributors to account for these sites and explorations of the relation between the ethnographic field site and the heritage or museum site.

PARADIGMS: encounters between Western and other models

The paradigm of heritage that has dominated the international scene in the second half of the 20th century is the product of various cultural traditions of European origin, some of which date back to the Renaissance. Exported to non-European countries by the colonial administrations as a political tool and as a symbol of Western modernity, the notion of cultural heritage and the practices, institutions, arrangements and knowledge it implies have been adopted in many contexts with various consequences. As a result, the so-called western model of heritage has been modified and reshaped in order to adjust to local configurations of the past and specific ways of preserving it.

One of the questions we would like to address is whether it is still possible today to identify a shared heritage paradigm or are we in the presence of multiple models existing side by side. We shall also explore how these paradigms interact with each other within national contexts and in transnational arenas such as UNESCO and ICOMOS. Another issue that is woth exploring is whether the dialogue between diverse heritage models is possible or whether their logics are irreconcilable. This topic is directly related to the reconfiguration of the relationships linking previously colonized or politically dominated states and the ‘West’ due to the new political and economic situation and the fabrication of globalized heritage-scapes: how shall the asymmetric relationships linking the western paradigm with other non-western models be re-examined and reformulated?

Moving on from the successful event in Lisbon last year, the Tourism Contact Culture Research Network is about to organise an open access Live Stream Skype Video conference, on the theme of “The Magic of Other in Tourism and Travel”. Presenters from various places around the world will use skype video which will be put into a conference and live streamed.

You can follow the event online and participate in the discussions – without even having to leave your sofa! All you need is an internet connection and a computer.

Public Live Broadcast at 17 September 2011, 13h-15:22h (Central European Time) followed by online discussion.

In analogy to ritual practices observed by anthropologists in various parts of the world invoking and renewing the mythical groundings of social life in society, modern tourists seem to find a mythical alter ego in spaces and people morally and ontologically removed from everyday life. These ‘Others’ which variable appear in form of exotic people, distanced pasts, and sublime natures do a priori not exist per se, but are contextually and situationally configured through tourism and the societal realms from which tourism emanates. What are the stories, mythical worlds and powers evoked and brought alive by these Others? How do they inform, or translate into, tourist practice and the development of attractions? What moral orders do they imply? What social relations, and what forms of society does tourist practice induce at a wider scale?

The conference aims to explore the relations between Self and Other in the specific intersubjective field of tourism. Self and Other are considered here in a dynamic and processual way, as co-constitutive entities that delineate and reappropriate, colonize and bewitch each other; that posses, inhabit and ultimately maintain each other. Magic represents a central overarching concept. It is used in a phenomenological perspective, as a (culturally/historically informed) means for social actors to make sense of specific qualities or powers ascribed to social ‘Others’, able to effect reality. While the workshop engages with the anthropological literature on magic, it inverses its classical anthropological and common sense signification: magic is not within exotic or marginal people or places, but within modernity from which the concept originally emanated and through which it continues to shape ideas and forms others – precisely as “magical”.

PRESENTATION FORMAT AND TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

The conference builds on outcomes of the international conference, Tourism and Seductions of Difference, held in Lisbon, Portugal in September 2010. Each speaker will give a short 10 minute presentation exploring a particular realm of Other that emerges in the field of tourism practice. The papers will focus on the central narratives defining such realms and the means by which these are mobilized in actual tourism practice (e.g. through architecture, itineraries, objects, food, staged performances, theatrical invocations, bodily immersion, the acquisition of souvenirs, talking, etc.).

The conference will take place within the virtual space of a Skype video conference live streamed at http://www.livestream.com/tococu. At a technical level, speakers will be added to a Skype Video Conference and present their papers online. Speakers need to add TOCOCU to their Skype contact list (by 13 Sept at the latest). They will need a webcam and headphones (to avoid sound problems). Questions and answers will be managed through the chat facility of the live streaming web page. Anyone who wishes to participate in the Questions and Answer session needs to create a chat name at the live stream webpage (takes 1 minute to do). The discussion will continue at the Open Anthropology page of the Tourism Contact Culture Research Network. The conference will be recorded and be made available for further views. It is open access.

ORGANIZERS

The event is organized by the Tourism Contact Culture Research Network (TOCOCU). More information can be found at the TOCOCU website, www.tourismcontactculture.org.uk.

PROGRAMME (preliminary and subject to change, version 1.0/060911)

All times in the programme refer to Central European Summer Time (Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, Rome). Speakers and participants from outside this time zone (e.g. Portugal, UK, Russia, USA, Argentina, Brazil, China, Australia, Indonesia, etc.) please check the corresponding times in their time zone.

13:00-13:10

‘’The Magic of Other in Tourism and Travel’’, David Picard, CRIA- New University of Lisbon, Portugal

Heritage, cultural tourism and sustainable development in Haiti:Challenges and prospects

November 10, 11, 12 and 13, 2011
Hôtel Karibe, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

International symposium jointly organized by the State University of Haiti and Laval University, (Quebec City, Canada) under the auspices of the Honourable Michaëlle Jean, ex-Governor General of Canada and Special Envoy of UNESCO for Haiti.

This international and inter-disciplinary workshop aims to study the current challenges and future prospects for the sustainable development of cultural tourism in Haiti. Tourism is a growing sector throughout the world and has become an important source of revenue for both developed and developing countries alike. While cultural tourism is not without its pitfalls (site degradation, folklorization of local cultures, skyrocketing real estate prices, etc.), it nevertheless offers unexpected development opportunities for poor countries. Most of the large international organizations (UNESCO, the World Bank, the World Tourism Organization, etc.) now recognize that when tourism is well managed, it can become a major force in spearheading sustainable development in poor countries by helping promote the national culture, offering employment opportunities with a positive economic impact for local communities, and creating service-sector jobs that allow for the development of skills in heritage development and management.

Once known as the “the Pearl of the Caribbean,” Haiti was for a long time among the area’s most desirable destinations. While the deteriorating political and economic situation has reduced tourist activity over the last thirty years, the country still has a very rich heritage in the areas of history, architecture, craftsmanship, art, literature, archaeology, nature and festivals. The potential of heritage enhancement and cultural tourism for sustainable development in Haiti is all the more important since the Caribbean region is a major tourist destination and this sector of the tourism industry is the fastest growing such sector in the Caribbean region, and indeed worldwide. The themes suggested for discussion include: improvement of job training for the tourism sector, development of cultural routes presenting tangible and intangible cultural heritage, the reconstruction of airport, road, hotel and resort infrastructures, the linkage of beach and cultural tourism, and the potential for tourism around the heritage of the earthquake itself.

The organizers encourage contributions from national and international scholars who specialize in cultural tourism, as well as from students, civil servants, representatives from association circles and NGOs, tour operators, and private entrepreneurs, to reflect upon the challenges and set up tourism-related projects adapted to the situation in Haiti. The conference will also serve to make recommendations to the Haïtien government and to publish a selection of the papers for a collection of essays at Laval University Press.

All those interested in participating in the symposium are kindly requested to submit their 150- word proposal, along with a 75 word résumé, BEFORE AUGUST 25th, 2011, to Laurier Turgeon (Laurier.Turgeon@hst.ulaval.ca) and to Wilson Laleau (wilson.laleau@ueh.edu.ht). The selection committee will reply to all applicants by the 1st of September. Those interested in participating without presenting a paper are welcomed to contact the organizers to acquire a registration form.

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This blog was created by a network of critical researchers on heritagizations of different countries and languages. The blog aims to provide easy access to information and updated news about critical analyses of heritage objects and practices within disciplines as varied as history, political sciences, geography and anthropology.
Contact : res.patrimoni@gmail.com.

cultural.property.org
In June 2008, researchers at the Universities of Göttingen and Hamburg began an interdisciplinary project on cultural property supported by funds from the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft.

World Heritage Tourism Research Network
The World Heritage Tourism Research Network (WHTRN) is dedicated to fostering collaborative research that addresses the challenges and opportunities of tourism at World Heritage sites and their surrounding regions.